


The Scent of Snow

by ohargos



Category: Blue (Manga)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1625636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohargos/pseuds/ohargos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They remember the breakwater, the taste of mint, and the grey-blue sea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scent of Snow

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Tenika D

 

 

i.

The tea is a little too bitter and Kirishima forgets about it, lost in thought, and when she remembers again, it's no longer warm.

Outside the air is raw and the sharp scent of snow lingers in the air. Erik Satie's _Gymnopedie No. 1_ is playing in the background, and Kirishima feels light and melancholic, and her mind wanders. She remembers the breakwater, the taste of mint and the grey-blue sea. She remembers things she thought she wouldn't forget, and things she lied she would.

There is a hollow ache, growing suddenly sharper and they call her flight, and somehow, she is almost scared to stand up and turn around.

ii.

After Kirishima leaves, Endo writes her twelve letters.

On a summer night, she goes out, asks a green-eyed girl for fire, convinces her to let Endo keep the lighter, and then burns the letters in the garden of an abadoned house.

She watches the ash float upwards in the air, and her heart feels lighter.

iii.

The neon sign on the wall of the building across the street sometimes keeps Kirishima awake at nights. (This is what she says, at least, and takes a sip of water after each quick sip of black coffee - she says it makes the water taste sweet.)

In Tokyo, it's never dark. Some of the neon signs flicker off for the night, but there are always more. (One morning, when she looks particularly tired, someone asks Kirishima if she hates the signs. Almost surprised by the question, she says no. Almost says, But I'm the one who grew up in the city.)

In the blue twilight of very early morning (this colour reminds her of something - it's a sharp pang in her ribcage, and still she cannot name it), she walks around the room, and stretches her legs in front of her so that they catch the green light of the flickering sign.

She watches the light on the skin of her arm, her own delicate wrist, and under her breath, repeats the names of the wrist bones, over and over. (There was a boy with floppy hair and kind eyes who taught her them, like a little magic spell, his bony boyfingers circling her girlwrists.) _Scaphoid, lunate, triquetrum, pisiform, trapezium, trapezoid, capitate, hamate, scaphoid, lunate--_

She has a secret.

(Here it is:

This is all she can remember:

She once said, "I won't forget you. I'll never forget you.)

In this room she plays little games of sleepwalking, and little games of insomnia. The day she moves out, she cuts her hair and watches the black strands disappear into the white sink.

iv.

One evening, the buzz of sparkling wine making her dizzy still, Endo chooses the wrong number, trying to call her ex-boyfriend whom she still sort of likes. (He carried her home on his back once, just because, and came to her grandmother's funeral with her.)

It's a woman's voice answering, clear and soft, "Kirishima."

She hangs up with a quick apology, and only afterwards wonders if she knew someone by that name once.

v.

Coming home after an all-nighter at work, Kirishima has nothing to eat apart from a box of grapes she got for half price at the local grocery store.

Eating them at the kitchen table with the bright morning light filling the room, she suddenly, without any apparent reason, starts to cry.

vi.

Endo blows a strand of hair out of her eyes, and thinks she should get it cut. She feels restless, and the music playing in the airport bar is slow, sparse notes scattered across the keys of a piano, and she wonders if she should leave. His flight is late, and at some point she accidentally thought of leaving, and now the thought haunts her. They are okay, she thinks, and he may well propose one of these days, and somehow still leaving doesn't sound unthinkable.

She brushes the untamed hair off her face, and tries to calm herself down. She stares at the back of the woman sitting in front of her, staring dreamily out of the window. She watches the clear line of her neck, the slightly uneven hair and the cup of tea growing cold in front of her.

(She never made any promises about not forgetting.)

And slowly, as if preparing herself for the inevitable, the woman stands up and turns around.

Endo averts her eyes, but the woman is looking at her. She finds herself thinking of breakwaters, mint candies, the grey-blue sea.

 


End file.
